Staff Software Engineer, Identity and Access Management

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If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.

About the Role:
Kong is building the future of API management for developers. We’re a fast-growing, well-funded company with happy customers and motivated employees. Insomnia, acquired in 2019, is a full-lifecycle API development platform that has quickly become an integral part of Kong’s product portfolio.
As a Staff Software Engineer on the Konnect team at Kong, you’ll architect Kong Identity's multi-tenant identity platform supporting complex organizational hierarchies, cross-tenant isolation, and enterprise-grade security controls.

What You'll Do:

• Design and implement advanced token management systems, including refresh token rotation, proof-of-possession tokens, and custom token introspection with real-time revocation capabilities.

• Lead development of Kong Identity's extensible claims engine supporting dynamic attribute resolution, contextual claim injection, and complex business logic evaluation at token issuance.

• Architect global identity infrastructure with edge optimization, intelligent token caching, and cross-region replication strategies for sub-millisecond authentication latency worldwide.

• Design sophisticated rate limiting, anomaly detection, and fraud prevention systems to protect against credential stuffing, token abuse, and distributed attacks.

• Build enterprise identity federation capabilities, including SAML bridge patterns, external IdP chaining, and custom protocol adapters for legacy system integration.

• Lead technical strategy for Kong Identity's developer experience, including SDKs, webhooks, audit logging, and real-time analytics dashboards for token lifecycle visibility.

• Architect advanced client management systems supporting dynamic client registration, automated credential rotation, and programmatic policy enforcement.

• Design Kong Identity's plugin architecture enables custom grant flows, protocol extensions, and third-party integrations while maintaining security boundaries.

• Drive implementation of compliance frameworks (SOC 2, FedRAMP, GDPR), including comprehensive audit trails, data residency controls, and privacy-preserving token designs.

• Lead technical initiatives for Kong Identity's integration with observability platforms, supporting distributed tracing, metrics collection, and security event correlation.

• Mentor engineering teams on advanced identity concepts including zero-trust architectures, workload identity, and service mesh integration patterns.

What You'll Bring:

• 7+ years of experience building production identity platforms at leading identity providers or enterprise software companies, with proven track record of handling millions of authentication requests daily.

• Deep expertise in advanced OAuth 2.0 extensions (PKCE, mTLS, JWT bearer assertions, token exchange), OpenID Connect profiles, and emerging standards like OAuth 2.1 and GNAP.

• Proven experience architecting multi-tenant identity platforms with complex isolation requirements, tenant-specific configurations, and enterprise feature sets.

• Strong background in cryptographic protocols including advanced JWT patterns, key rotation strategies, Hardware Security Module (HSM) integration, and post-quantum cryptography considerations.

• Experience building identity platforms with sophisticated analytics, real-time monitoring, and security event detection capabilities at enterprise scale.

• Expertise in global identity infrastructure including edge deployment strategies, geo-distributed token validation, and cross-region data consistency patterns.

• Deep understanding of enterprise identity integration patterns including SAML federation, LDAP/AD bridges, SCIM provisioning, and custom protocol adapters.

• Proven track record building developer-first identity platforms including comprehensive SDKs, webhook systems, and extensible API designs.

• Experience with identity platform security including threat modeling, penetration testing coordination, and implementation of advanced attack prevention mechanisms.

• Strong background in compliance and regulatory requirements for identity systems including audit trail design, data residency controls, and privacy engineering.

• Experience building identity platforms supporting complex organizational structures, delegated administration, and fine-grained permission models.

• Expertise in high-performance system design including horizontal scaling strategies, caching architectures, and latency optimization for identity operations.

• Knowledge of service mesh identity patterns, workload identity bootstrapping, and integration with container orchestration platforms.

• Experience with identity protocol extensions, custom grant flows, and building extensible identity platforms that support diverse use cases.

• Proven ability to lead technical initiatives in complex, regulated environments while balancing innovation with security and compliance requirements.

#LI-AW1

About Kong:

Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.